The five cornerstones
What good youth work rests on.
Click into a cornerstone to read what it means, reflect on your own practice and see your history.
Learning that starts where young people are.
Youth work creates opportunities for young people to learn through experience, reflection and dialogue — building knowledge, skills and confidence that matter to them.
Power shared, not held over.
Youth work supports young people to develop a critical understanding of themselves and the world, and to take action on the things that matter to them.
Voluntary, owned, shared.
Young people choose to be involved and shape what happens. Youth work is built on relationships that young people opt in to and influence.
Reaching wider, going deeper.
Youth work actively welcomes diversity, challenges discrimination, and works to remove barriers so every young person can take part on their own terms.
A space to be, to make, to say.
Youth work offers space and methods — creative, physical, digital, spoken — for young people to express who they are and what they think.